“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.

” – Albert Schweitzer.

I still remember when I was having a biology class last year, I stood over a frog and couldn’t make a cut of it. I wasn’t scared, but I felt something about that moment was deeply wrong.

We were told to see it as a “sacrifice”, which a life we could take because it served our purpose. If this were a dog, would we hesitate? And even if this were a human? It has hit me so much that after discovering how humans casually rank lives.

Therefore, it made me reflect on the value of life and how we can truly divide the definition of acceptable, what can and what cannot be.

After that, I read the idea of “reverence of life” by Albert Schweitzer. I realized the feeling of mine standing beside the frog that day. He didn’t directly ask us to be kind and respect the animals but talked about in what ways we can identify the valuable lives and unmeaningful lives. Humans often judge them by their appearance and their use to identify if they deserve our compassion.

This impulse to prioritize life doesn't just occur in our domination of animals; it also subtly exists in how we perceive the people around us. I live in Hong Kong and I’ve often noticed how some locals treat and see South Asian families who have already lived for generations.

They have been often judged by their skin tone and their faces, without knowing their culture. Because they don't look like us, some of them might even encounter prejudiced glances and unfriendly criticism. Everyone tends to blend into the background rather than be noticed, and the majority of people only give a damn about those who resemble us. Although they are also human, they have been treated differently, merely because of the skin colours. This way of thinking is so deeply ingrained in our culture and social structure that it seems almost instinctive.

A few months ago, I heard a story of my classmate, who is labeled as a problem student because she often got into fights. It turned out, she was one of the most compassionate people I had ever met. During a home visit, a social worker discovered her room was filled with stray cats and dogs. She spent all her savings on their medical treatment, even took a

low-paying job to help pay for their medical care after spending all of her savings on it. She lived with an alcoholic uncle who mistreated her after her parents passed away when she was a small child. She refrained from speaking when she was younger in order to keep her younger brother safe. Everything changed after she was introduced to animal rescue by a neighbor. Society had labeled her violent. People laughed and cursed her. But she quietly cared for animals no one else wanted. If violence can be learned from pain, maybe compassion can be too — and sometimes it grows from the same hurt. Society uses the label "problem student" to categorize lives, classifying her as someone of low value, thus selectively ignoring her compassion and only amplifying the so-called violence. This tenderness, born from pain, should break through prejudice and be seen and respected. If violence can be learned from pain, then perhaps compassion can also be learned. The way we treat animals is inseparable from the way we treat people. Whose lives do we decide matter?

Then, I started to realize that this has slowly impacted people’s personal behavior. In Kwun Tong, a new roast meat factory opened right next to a public housing estate. Most of the residents are from working-class families, including many elderly people and children. Soon after, local residents are full of complaints but have no way to resolve the issue. On the other hand, wealthier neighborhoods don't have dirty air and smelly smells next to their homes but nice views outside. From this, you can see the difference just by walking around. However, working-class families don’t have a choice as they live where they can afford. And the factory owners know exactly what they’re doing, it is so much cheaper to release waste in a neighborhood where people don’t have the resources to fight back. They’re treating the health of residents as a cost they can pass on to someone else and that is the same logic I saw with the frog in biology class, now has been applied to working-class families.

It’s easy to think this is just a Hong Kong problem, but this logic of sacrifice is global. I was stunned by a 2023 U.S. EPA report: Black Americans breathe 50% more particulate pollution than the national average, despite producing far less of it. Think about that, breathing in the cost of someone else's convenience. This same playbook repeats across the Atlantic. The irony is brutal: those who pollute the least suffer the most. Look at the Sahel region, where droughts were fueled by emissions they didn't produce—rip apart communities, forcing them to fight over scraps of water and land. When forests vanish for beef and palm oil, it's indigenous homes that burn. When rivers turn black, it’s the poor who drown. This isn't just about a factory in Kwun Tong; it’s the same operating system: treating human lives as disposable waste so others can live in comfort.

I used to think of environmental justice, animal rights, and racial justice as separate issues, but Schweitzer’s philosophy made me see the thread running through them. It’s the same mindset of ranking lives. The compassion of human or non-human, examples in daily life of local or foreign, the difference between rich or poor have impressed me. What lets a student be judged by skin color? What lets a frog be pinned down in a classroom without anyone stopping to ask whether they should? All of the fights between these topics are because of the same mindset, it caged all of the victims and perpetrators in one cage.

This very mindset is what lets a factory pollute a low-income neighborhood with little regard for the people who call it home. It is what leads a student to be judged unfairly by the color of their skin. It is also what makes it seem normal for a frog to be pinned down for dissection, without anyone pausing to question whether this act is truly justified.

Schweitzer never asked us to treat every kind of suffering as exactly the same. His request is far simpler yet far more challenging. He urged us to abandon the kind of reasoning that makes any form of suffering acceptable from the outset. We must stop ranking the worth of lives by what is convenient for us, by profit, or by how distant they are from our own lives.

That day in biology class, I put down the scalpel, and I haven't been able to pick up a piece of meat from a supermarket without wondering about the blood on the other side of the

supply chain. I started small—tracing the origins of my food, saying 'no' to products that silently cost the earth. But I know these are just whispers against a roaring storm. Real change isn't just me being a 'conscious consumer'; it's about screaming until the system changes. It means demanding laws that stop polluters from dumping in our neighborhoods, and standing with migrant workers and minorities who are told their lives are less valuable. It means challenging that ugly, lazy phrase, 'some lives don't matter,' whenever I hear it, because silence is just another kind of scalpel.

This is about refusing to accept that any life is disposable. For me, that means learning, every day, to see the scalpel in my hand—and choosing, quietly, to put it down.